groves were dedicated to these gods; Priests and Priestesses
devoted their lives to their service; the arms of the
champion, and the person of the king were charmed by
them; neither peace nor war was made without their
sanction; their own persons and their pupils were held
sacred; the high place at the king's right hand and the
best fruits of the earth and the waters were theirs. Old
age revered them, women worshipped them, warriors paid
court to them, youth trembled before them, princes and
chieftains regarded them as elder brethren. So numerous
were they in Erin, and so celebrated, that the altars of
Britain and western Gaul, left desolate by the Roman
legions, were often served by hierophants from Erin,
which, even in those Pagan days, was known to all the
Druidic countries as the "Sacred Island." Besides the
princes, the warriors, and the Druids, (who were also
the Physicians, Bards and Brehons of the first ages,)
there were innumerable petty chiefs, all laying claim to
noble birth and blood. They may be said with the warriors
and priests to be the only freemen. The _Bruais_, or
farmers, though possessing certain legal rights, were an
inferior caste; while of the Artisans, the smiths and
armorers only seem to have been of much consideration.
The builders of those mysterious round towers, of which
a hundred ruins yet remain, may also have been a privileged
order. But the mill and the loom were servile occupations,
left altogether to slaves taken in battle, or purchased
in the market-places of Britain. The task of the herdsman,
like that of the farm-labourer, seems to have devolved
on the bondsmen, while the _quern_ and the shuttle were